An article on the never-ending Greek debt crisis in this morning’s New York Times begins:
ATHENS — Despite new evidence of a deteriorating economy, Greece said on Monday that it would cut 15,000 state jobs this year as part of new austerity measures it intends to adopt to secure new debt agreements from international lenders.
“Despite”? Shouldn’t that be “Because of”? No, silly. The article explains:
Some economists argue that Greece’s problems show that austerity is the wrong medicine for the struggling economy. Two years of spending cuts have weighed on employment, with the Greek jobless rate at 19 percent.
The International Monetary Fund has forecast that Greece’s economy will contract by about 3 percent in 2012. A shrinking economy, by reducing tax revenue, could make it even more difficult for Greece to meet its debt reduction goals.
In other words, the only cure for an economy wrecked by massive overspending is more massive overspending. “Some economists” say this, so it must be true; evidently the only people who disagree are international lenders, who won’t let anything as unimportant as the safety of their money get in the way of their adherence to outdated dogma.